In one of those symbolic gestures that don't go beyond a press release, attorneys general from 49 states signed a safety pact with MySpace.
Feb 9, 2008 - There was one holdout. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, a leading Internet-safety advocate, did not sign the safety pact that was announced last month between 49 state attorneys general and Myspace.com. He called it too weak.
The weakness? The pact depends upon MySpace subscribers' truthfully reporting their ages when creating online profiles. The discussion, however, is worth having.
[Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom] Corbett and other attorneys general have suggested charging nominal fees to set up MySpace sites, payable by credit card. That would enable parents to give their teen permission to create the site, or at least spot the charge on their bill if the youth secretly used their credit card.Sad to note that one person accused of sexually assaulting a child he groomed on the Internet was a teacher. Joshua Uhrich, [Ulrich] 30, a special-education teacher at South Philadelphia High School, was charged with sexually assaulting a 14-year-old female student he had met on MySpace. TT entry
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TT - There already are market-based solutions to the problem. Parents can monitor what their children do on Internet sites. The software is easily installed and will allow them to track and record - keystroke by keystroke, if they like - what their son or daughter does online. To some parents this might be seen an invasion of their child's privacy, the equivalent of reading their diary. They can't say the tools are not there, though. Teaching a child to be responsible, however, is one of the most important lessons in life.
Before the Internet, it was a good idea to tell a child not to write anything they didn't want to be seen on the front page of the New York Times. Now the audience is wider and the front page remains up indefinitely. And the real-life Trolls and creeps can download those pics in a nanosecond. If you want to be in HIS wallet for a lifetime, go for it.
